COMPANY PLAYBOOK
37signals
37signals deliberately limits scope and cadence to protect calm, independent, long-term productivity in small teams.
System principles
- Fix time, flex scope.
- Use mastery and direct responsibility instead of management layers.
- Make career and pay expectations written and predictable.
Tensions and trade-offs
- A calm cadence creates focus, but may reduce flexibility during hypergrowth or crisis.
- Low coordination increases independence but can create blind spots across dependencies.
PRACTICES
How 37signals builds its operating system
01
Team structure
Small teams
Independent work is protected through few management layers and limited coordination.
- How it works
- Small product teams of roughly three own an end-to-end project slice.
- Why it is used
- Reduces communication overhead and handoffs.
- Trade-off
- Creates specialist bottlenecks and key-person risk.
- Best fit
- Mature product teams where scope can be separated cleanly.
02
Compensation
Equal role, equal pay
People at the same role and level receive the same pay.
- How it works
- People at the same role and mastery level are evaluated through a common pay framework.
- Why it is used
- Reduces negotiation-driven inequity and uncertainty.
- Trade-off
- Can make it harder to respond to scarce skills or differing market conditions.
- Best fit
- Relatively small organizations with stable role and level definitions.
03
Careers
Five mastery levels
Career growth is defined through craft mastery rather than management.
- How it works
- Craft mastery is described across five levels and progression is not tied to becoming a manager.
- Why it is used
- Makes expert contribution paths and expectations visible.
- Trade-off
- If levels become static they can compress the diversity of actual contribution.
- Best fit
- Teams that want to preserve technical and creative expert tracks.
04
Performance
Annual performance review
Reviews are frequent in year one, then documented annually.
- How it works
- Expectations and growth are discussed through more frequent first-year reviews and annual written reviews thereafter.
- Why it is used
- Creates a regular checkpoint with low bureaucracy instead of continuous scoring.
- Trade-off
- An annual cadence can surface issues too late and cannot replace everyday feedback.
- Best fit
- Stable, mature teams with close day-to-day collaboration.